1. Technical Field
This invention relates to spinning reels and, more particularly, to a spinning reel having a dual drag system operable between automatic and manual modes.
2. Description of the Art
In the prior art, a standard spinning reel typically uses a single drag system. For certain types of fishing conditions, it is preferable to have two separate and adjustable drag systems. Generally, the primary drag is heavy and the secondary drag is light. The light drag is set to let the bait fish swim with the line. It also allows the game fish to run with bait without feeling drag. Once a fish has taken the bait, the heavy drag is needed to set the hook and reel in the fish. The reel must be switched from light drag to heavy drag.
Currently, there are two types of systems used to switch between light and heavy drag. One type is to manually trip or slide a lever to engage the heavy drag. With this style, once a fish has taken the bait, a manual lever must be tripped by hand; then the reel handle must be turned to reel in the fish.
The second type is to employ a tripping mechanism which automatically engages the heavy drag by turning the handle of the reel. At times, this is considered to be more convenient than the manual type.
There is one major inconvenience of the automatic trip type. While fishing, slack in the line may need to be taken in by turning the handle. Depending on the conditions, this might be done quite often. A reel with the automatic feature will need to be reset to the light drag mode constantly, because it will trip to the heavy drag mode every time the handle is turned. Also, this is undesirable because any fish biting during this transition could be lost, as the reel would no longer be in the light drag mode needed when the fish takes the bait. In these conditions, the manual trip mechanism is more convenient.
Prior art patents for such mechanisms in spinning reels are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,746,077, dated May 24, 1988, for a control device for a drag mechanism in a spinning-type fishing reel, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,278, dated Mar. 21, 2000, for a spinning reel for fishing.
The '278 patent shows a spinning reel in which the spool 16 is mounted on the shaft 17 at the front of the reel. Also at the front, the main or heavy drag controls the rotation of the spool on the spool shaft.
At the rear, a rear or light drag assembly 23, FIG. 1, can apply some drag to the spool shaft. This would be a light drag as opposed to the heavy drag accorded by the main drag in the front.
A plate 50 moves within the body of the reel to control the drag that is being used. In the position (identified as position II) shown in solid lines in FIG. 4, the plate 50 is in a stable condition wherein the spinning reel is in a free spool shaft condition. In this condition, the spool, which is mounted on the spool shaft 17, rotates easily; and hence, pulling fishing line from the spool is easy and provides little resistance. To prevent the spool from moving too freely, the adjustable drag assembly 23 at the rear provides a light adjustable drag force in this condition.
However, if the plate 50 is moved to the left to the phantom position (identified as position I) so that the protrusion 56 on the plate 50 fits into a notch 42, the block 40 cannot rotate and therefore neither can the shaft spool 17; which is rotationally fixed in relation to the block 40. This position is known as the normal drag condition in which heavier drag can be applied, such as after the fish has taken the hook on the cast line. This condition can be obtained by either pushing a flip lever to move the plate 50 to position I, or by turning the main gear 80 in the direction of the arrow C in FIG. 4. When this occurs, the end surface 84 of a claw 82 contacts protrusion 58 on plate 50 and moves it from the position shown in solid lines in FIG. 4 to the position shown in phantom lines at 58 I. Thus, this mechanism provides an automatic way of moving to the heavy drag condition by simply rotating the handle of the reel.
In accordance with this device, there are two conditions arrived at as follows:
First, one can manually engage and lock up the spool shaft so that it cannot turn. The phantom condition I allows only the heavy front end drag to deter rotation of the spool; or this can be done automatically by rotating the handle and thus causing the claw to engage and slide the plate 50. Note, however, that this happens every time the fisherman turns the handle.
The other condition is to move the lever manually and thus move the plate 50 to the right, when viewed as in FIG. 4, to move the device into the free spool shaft condition.
Therefore, the two conditions are either to move the plate manually to lock the spool shaft or unlock it, or move it automatically to lock the spool shaft. One cannot move it to an unlocked condition wherein the reel handle could be used to take up slack in the line, since rotating the handle would automatically lock up the spool shaft.
With the spool shaft locked up, the spool is stationery. When the handle of the reel is turned, it turns the main gear drive shaft. This turns the rotor which rotates around the stationery spool which is mounted on the spool shaft. Since the spool shaft is locked to the spool, there is an adjustable amount of drag which still allows the spool to be turned and the line to be drawn off.